We can afford it

Every year on average two people are killed, and over 260 injured on Worthing’s roads, 30 of them seriously.

According to the Department for Transport the cost of this is over £12 million pounds every year (including lost economic output, costs to the NHS and the police). If a 20’s Plenty scheme achieved a 3 per cent reduction in this it would have paid for itself in just over one year.

The estimated £400,000 cost of introducing 20 mph limits on residential streets across the whole of Worthing is less than installing three sets of traffic lights. 20’s Plenty has about the best cost benefit ratio of any spending on our roads.

Chris highlights that you are far more likely to be killed if hit at 30mph than at 20mph, but he forgets to mention that slower speeds will prevent many collisions occurring in the first place, due to the difference in stopping distances.

If a child runs out 40 feet in front of your car, at 20mph you could just stop in time. At 30mph you would hit them still doing 26mph (equivalent to the impact of falling from a third-storey window) and at 40mph you would not even have had time to hit the brake pedal.

No wonder children, pedestrians, cyclists and indeed other drivers all feel safer when drivers slow down a little.

If you support 20mph limits for residential streets, please sign the petition at www.20splentyforworthing.org.uk